Adventures with Beeswax Collage

Ever since I bought Claudine Hellmuth's Beeswax Collage DVD last year I have been itching to try out her techniques. Yesterday I was finally able to spend some real time doing just that. Instead of starting with a blank canvas or wooden board for a substrate, I used a canvas that I had done some collaging a few years back. It looked like this:

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This is a combination of collage papers, acrylics, and oil pastels.

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Just one layer of natural beeswax makes quite a change in color.

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I used a wooden stylus to incise lines on top of the lines that already existed on the collage and then "scrubbed" some brown oil paint into them.

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I used several paper towels to buff off the excess paint. This shows some areas that have and have not been buffed.

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The finished effect. I am really pleased with the way the paint settled into the pitted areas in the wax. Obviously, I didn't have a very smooth base layer of wax down, but that's ok. I'm still learning!

The very cool thing about working with wax or encaustic medium is that it is very forgiving. You can always reheat the areas you don't like and start over. I need to do more research to learn what types of materials can be layered together and in what order. I do know that you have to use only oil-based products when working with wax, although this piece that I've shown had acrylics as part of the substrate so....I'm not sure. Anyway, I consider my first attempt at beeswax collage a success and I'll continue to play with it.

On a different note...look who greeted me at my studio door this morning. Not to fear. It was a harmless yellow rat snake, but still, it made me a little nervous. I hope he likes lizards! There's more of those in our yard than anything.

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Comments

I love that you are enjoying your studio, finally and playing with wax... it is an adventure and I need to get back to it myself... now as for the snake on the wall.. no thanks... glad you knew what it was, just be careful everytime you come and go... never know what or who will greet you :) have a fun day!!!!